In this video spotlight interview, Brian Shenson, vice president of Advisor Technology Solutions for Schwab Advisor Services met with me to update Schwab’s progress on a number of technology initiatives.

“[OpenView MarketSquare is] not meant to replace other resources advisers rely on to learn about technology”, said Shenson, “but we think we have a unique opportunity to create voice to the adviser’s perspective on the technology they use to help inform other advisers before making that purchase decision for a particular technology.”

Schwab OpenView MarketSquare™ provides technology ratings and reviews, exclusively by and for advisors who custody with Schwab Advisor Services™

OpenView Gateway versus Integrated Office

Finally, there still is confusion over the differences in the two primary back office offerings from Schwab Advisor Services, OpenView Gateway and the Integrated Office.

I asked Shenson to identify the type of advisory firm to which each solution is best suited.

“Many advisers have already made substantial investments in their technology infrastructure, and for them we wanted to work with best-of-breed providers and build integrations to those platforms. That is what we designed with OpenView Gateway,” said Shenson.

The alternate solution, Integrated Office, is a complete “office in a box” offering.

“Many advisers are looking for incredible simplicity in their operating model,” said Shenson.

“They’re looking to us as a provider to offer an integrated solution where all the pieces are designed to fit very well together. For them we offer the Integrated Office.”

You’ll see how the network resources are not just a list of PDF files listing the steps advisers should follow to prepare for a client meeting, but includes CRM plugins (Redtail and Grendel are the first ones to support this integration) and live training webinars and discussions with Fox and other experts.

“We’re fully integrated with Veo,” said Ringquist, “[allowing] advisors to bring accounts and holdings data into the application, which eliminates all that time and makes quick planning even quicker.”

goalgamiPro has also added a new data sheet with cash flow illustrations, further enhancing the conversations advisers can have with clients about planning opportunities.

“There are two ways to look at the viability of goal planning: one is through the balance sheet, but it doesn’t address ‘financeability,’ when cash will be available to meet goals,” added Ringquist. “So we’ve provided that cash flow report [which is] another way to evaluate the client’s goal plan.”

Just like the most viewed video of 2012, readers wondering how to hide LinkedIn Endorsements generated the most visits to this FPPad post in 2012.

The relatively innocuous Endorsements feature LinkedIn added this year created a lot of frustration among registered advisers. While the feature is a convenient way for others to highlight an adviser’s skills and expertise, Endorsements skirt the gray area of testimonials that are prohibited by the SEC and FINRA.

Again, the conservative approach many advisers follow is to hide Endorsements altogether, and this post embedded a video to show how to do that.

I think everyone would agree that having a financial plan is the best way to work towards financial success. But the ways financial plans are created vary widely across the industry.

One method growing among advisers is the creation of a quick financial plan.

In one of this year’s top posts, Neal Ringquist, President of Advisor Software, Inc. talks about the trend of quick financial planning tools and highlights his company’s goalgamiPro product in a video spotlight interview.

Advisers clearly want to know what technology will help their business in the years ahead. For a post that’s just three weeks old, it was so popular it vaulted into the top five of all content for the year!

Sure, you can read surveys and industry reports until your eyes glaze over and identify the most popular technology products out there, but what about those products that will help your firm truly stand out from all the others? That’s where my annual Best Tech for Advisers list comes in.

Read this year’s update to find products that will help you share documents with ease, broadcast yourself live over the Internet, and proactively plan for your clients’ needs.

In the same category as one of the top all-time posts at FPPad (see: Dropbox for Financial Advisers: Is it Safe?), I cover reasons why financial advisers should think twice about using Google Drive, the search giant’s online file storage service, for storing files with sensitive information inside.

This is the first podcast update to break into the list of top posts of 2012, and that’s likely because it includes two topics of recent interest for advisers: Pinterest and compliance.

In this podcast, Smarsh president Stephen Marsh talks about the company’s latest product that can be used to archive content from new social media websites like Pinterest without depending on APIs or other data access methods that may not ordinarily be available from the social media site itself.

If you are one of those advisers who can’t wait to try out the next new social media website, then Smarsh’s new tool may be just the thing you need to manage your compliance requirements.

And finally, here’s the post to round out the best of 2012. It’s all about cloud computing and the things advisers can do to stay safe when using cloud services.

This is a reference over to my article for the July edition of the Journal of Financial Planning that includes a list of ten things advisers should ask of their cloud service provider when conducting due diligence.

All of the answers provided should be saved to your compliance file, so when a regulator challenges you on the security of your cloud provider, you have all this information at the ready to satisfy the request.

And that’s it.

The most popular posts of 2012 here at FPPad, all rolled up into one convenient update for your reference.

Allow me to ask one more time for you to subscribe to the free newsletter so you can stay up to date on the best in financial planning technology content. I’d normally say “monthly” newsletter, but I don’t send updates on a monthly schedule. It’s less frequent than that, so 1) your inbox won’t be overloaded, and 2) you’ll receive quick links to some of the premium content posted here.

Year-end “best of” lists are flooding my feeds, and I’m reading the majority of them as they offer good insight on what audiences of different media outlets and publications read the most.

This year, I’m going to split the Best of FPPad in 2012 feature into three categories: Videos, Podcasts, and Posts.

Videos were a new initiative I launched in 2012 to diversify the format of content featured here at FPPad.

This time last year I assembled my two-camera video setup that I could pack into a backpack and transport in an airplane overhead bin. I started with sit-down interviews, then branched out with point-of-view style interviews, iPad app demos, and then live On Air broadcasts.

I must say that the videos have been a big hit, as the FPPad YouTube channel surpassed 10,000 views and 50 subscribers this year. Have you subscribed yet?

So to kick off my list for this year, here are the top five videos (determined by view count) from FPPad in 2012.

1. How to hide endorsements from your LinkedIn profile for financial adviser compliance

Any time social media is mentioned for financial advisers, compliance rears its ugly head. This year’s most watched video addresses a new feature LinkedIn added earlier this year called Endorsements.

Generally, Endorsements are a quick and convenient way to highlight skills and expertise of LinkedIn connections, but the hard line the SEC and FINRA draws on prohibiting testimonials of any kind clouds whether or not Endorsements can be displayed on a regulated adviser’s profile.

The conservative approach is to simply hide Endorsements altogether, leading to the substantial interest in this how-to screencast.

In one of the first series of video spotlight interviews, I spoke with Orion Advisor Services President and CEO Eric Clarke about his company’s integration with TD Ameritrade Institutional’s Veo® Open Access platform.

This type of content shaped what was to come for the remainder of 2012, as I added content that highlighted financial planning technology developments that really matter to your business.

And I know, I know, it’s “VAY-oh” Open Access, not “VEE-oh!”

4. FPPad Spotlight: Mike Wilson of AdvisoryWorld at T3 2012

This is a dark horse winner for 2012, as AdvisoryWorld (and their portfolio statistics offered to advisers) doesn’t garner much attention from the other media outlets to which you subscribe.

Nevertheless, this video continues to receive consistent traffic from a variety of locations, including the AdvisoryWorld.com website (see, there’s a lesson in this for you: put video, arguably ANY video, on the home page of your website. People will watch some or all of it!)

5. T3 2012: Competing Against Robo Advisers: Delivering Advice in a New World – Part 1

The final top five video of 2012 was filmed at the 2012 T3 conference in Dallas, TX. It features a panel session with Blueleaf CEO John Prendergast and inStream co-founder Alex Murguia discussing the controversial topic of robo advisers, or online financial advice and financial planning platforms that are competing against traditional financial advisers and wealth managers.

When a technology vendor advertises a product as being “mobile compatible,” what does that really mean?

More often than not, mobile-compatible products usually display static reports and charts on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. But that’s not really taking advantage of mobile device capabilities, most notably a device’s touchscreen.

TrustFort, primarily known for its portfolio reporting technology to broker-dealers and RIAs, is now moving ahead with mobile app development with several of its partners that goes beyond basic report presentations, and instead provides a rich, interactive user experience. Such an environment lets both advisers and clients drill down into the details of financial and investment plans, touching different elements and expanding certain sections to view more detailed information.

Hear more about the mobile app development underway from TrustFort president and CEO Atindra Barua.